


Shaking Throne

by slire



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BDSM, F/M, Graphic Description, Knifeplay, Mommy Dom, Pegging, Whipping, disgusting, shot gunning, theyre both switches so the fight gets wild, ugh the list of kinks is long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 13:22:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9659285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slire/pseuds/slire
Summary: Two very unhealthy people try to have a healthy D/s relationship.





	

**Author's Note:**

> all you need to know about this fic is that nisha quotes john wayne in the middle of sex

The first time they met it was summer. 100°F in the shadow and STDs roamed every corner of the dive looking for a face to lick. He was an asshole and she was a bitch, so they insulted each other immediately, fought until they got thrown out and fucked behind a trash container. None of them came and both were too stubborn to stop. In the end, he spat in her face and she caught it and swallowed.

The second time they met it was winter. They ended up in a closed-off, disgusting WC of the exact same dive. She rode him in an awkward and cramped postition on the toilet, both about to fall, ice cold and sneering at each other. He came prematurely her and she mocked him. On the wall he graffiti'd ** _I had the worst cunt of my life here_ ** with a sharpie so she shoved his face in the clogged toilet bowl and left.

And that, it seemed, was that.

.

.

25th December

10 p.m.

**Six (6) missed calls from Dad.**

And with them, a gross feeling.

Christmas Eve and alone. Nisha always seeks the outside during festive holidays, the saccharine ballads, bullshit bullshit bullshit. She'd sworn off the whole season long ago. She loves her dad, but that doesn't stop him from loving her bitch mom. It's a bitter pill to have your parent choose someone else over you. Nisha's forgiven him, sorta, but she won't visit. Won't talk to him on days like these.

Steel-soled cowboy boots clank against rain-slick pavement. Shit weather. But beautiful people don't need umbrellas. Nisha plugs in her earplugs, listens to Jetro Tull, reminding herself she's gotta pick up some shit at the local gas station so that her little walk doesn't become a total waste. After those two glasses of whiskey for dinner she's warm enough.

She scrolls through hook-up apps, wiping raindrops away from the screen with her thumb. Nisha isn't looking for love. All her romantic relationships—in which BDSM has always been a requirement—have been seriously unhealthy and seriously stupid. Unimpressed she looks through dickpics sent to her accounts and replies to them with hello.jpg. The profiles aren't better. Her usual fuck-friends are all off with their families, and her friend-friends (like, three people on planet Earth) also celebrate Christmas. She doesn't mind telling people why she hates the holiday hadn't it been for what came after, the pitying but dead look of someone who _does_ _not get it_. For most people the word "holiday" ain't synonyms with "dead dog". A faint nausea rises from within her, and it feels like every hair was standing on end. Fuck the memories. Fuck her mother. Suddenly, a profile catches her attention and softens her scowl.

 

> **Name:** HJ
> 
> **Gender:** M
> 
> **Age:** 24
> 
> Bi sadomaso switch. Pics or nothing

Profile picture is a obscured black-haired white dude, and the text is generic too, except 'bi sadomaso switch'. She fits that description, too. "…That's a jewel…" The user is online, so she sends a wink. The reply comes about twenty seconds later.

 

> hot bod

What is he, twelve? The selfie he then sends shows he is not. A tall, lanky pale-ass, but he's got some definition, and he trims. Wears a bunch of steel rings and necklaces. Strong jawline, nice lips… A soul patch. Lack of tattoos stops him from ending up in the hipster daddy category. She sends,

 

> thanks. you look nice too

 Still, there's something off. Déjà vu or some shit. Have they met? Nisha has had sex with a lot of people.

 

> >:)

Admittedly, the emoji makes her breathe-chuckle as she walks into the gas station. The sound makes the night shift girl jump. Night shift girl's got dyed white scarecrow hair, goes back to nail filing behind the counter, intent! Amph user, days without sleep, no love just shivering and blown pupils. She ain't no golden child. _'But,'_ Nisha thinks, _'neither am I.'_ The overabundance of Christmas decoration in the gas station mocks them both. Nisha picks up tampons and gun cleaning solvent. Her dad calls again. Night shift girl takes Nisha's money and gives her change and hears the phone ring, sees Nisha's eyes. A moment of understanding passes between them, before their gazes go glass-like again, their separate problems seperate once more. She tries ignoring the pang of feeling. The call goes to voicemail.

Outside, in the rain, she feels worse. **One (1) message received** further agitates her, until she realizes it's from the hook-up app.

 

> so whatcha doing?

She replies too quick.

 

> nothing much.
> 
> what about you, sneaking into the bathroom to take dickpicks while grandma serves the christmas chicken?

He types, stop, begin anew. Did she scare him off? No, because,

 

> i don't celebrate christmas.

She replies,

 

> me neither

The '...'-bubble goes for a little while. HJ is a fast typer though.

 

 

> but my neighbor does. him and his five damn kids. I'm thinking about buying a life sized santa claus replica and put a knife in it and lay it on their porch so it's the first thing they'll see tomorrow morning :)

What a dick. Nisha smirks.

 

 

> …if you send me a nude

Definitely a dick.

Her apartment's quite a walk from there. Her earbuds are ruined; she's gotta press the plug into the phone to get sound, and right now it isn't worth it. 'Sides, he's a lot more interesting than Jetro Tull; she's been listening to the same band forever. She doesn't really feel like hooking-up with someone tonight but she can hold a conversation.

 

 

> that can be arranged ;)

They mess around some more, sending pics and the like, until she's home. She pushes the old door open—noting that she'll paint it come summer, its color faded—and locks it. Her back smacks against it, and she sinks. For a moment. _'No.'_ Her eyes fly open and she marches forward. Her apartment is small, cozy. Warm colours, brown-orange-red. Familiar smells: oak, dust, coffee, burnt-lard and whiskey-smell from her dinner. Animal skins, John Wayne-posters, western-styled furniture. She loves everything cowboy. But there ain't much badass dames in the movies, so she makes up for it with a collection of statues of Greek goddesses, small and big, in stone and cobber and faux gold. They stare at her with carved, pupil-less eyes. "Welcome home, Nisha," she says to the empty space and the silence.

She passes a mirror and seeing her own face startles her. In the memory-mirror Nisha herself is a young girl, and her mother is standing behind her, thin bony hands (too cutting) brushing her hair (too harshly); _"Who will ever love you, who will ever see you, if not us? We're family. You came from my womb and I know you better than anyone."_

Her dad calls again. In the kitchen she downs a third glass of rye whiskey, wincing as the busthead burns her throat, and turns off the phone signal. Internet remains on. By the time the evening's done and over with, she's got quite the collection of pictures from HJ, some nasty porn recs and a list of his kinks. She goes to bed with a cup of tea, lazily uses her magic wand to get an orgasm, drinks the still-warm tea up and calls it a day. "Thanks, HJ," she mumbles and sleeps and does not dream.

.

.

                   28th December

10 a.m.

Finally, her favorite greasy spoon's opening back up. The stink of heated butter in the wallpaper, oil in the floorboards. Breakfast sold 'till 04 p.m. with soggy eggs, blackened bacon and overcooked beans, delicious in familiarity rather than taste, all of it. She knows the owner, knows the clientele, knows last they cleaned out the spittoon was during the Nixton administation. There won't be folks who eavesdrop here this early, no sir. She tips her hat at the owner, orders a Sioux City Sarsaparilla with a dash of cherry. Owner looks disgusted.

She finds her usual booth, drinks and waits. Woman with her tastes has to have rules. Public meetings, mainly. Check if he's her new male hoe for holidays, a serial killer or a liar. Last one's the worst.

HJ walks in and she immediately remembers that the last time she saw him he'd been choking on shit. Literally. We're talking month-old feces here. Presently he's wearing a sneer and a frown; masks / insecurities he straightens out in selfies. Not sexy at all. She sees him smile almost shyly at her in the time before memory, and then he remembers and looks downright murderous. He reaches for his belt; a gun? He freezes when he sees both Nisha and the owner react with the quickness of skilled gunmen, hands on their hoisters faster than him, both their guns on him in an instant. If she'd been alone and without a weapon, there is not a sliver of a doubt in her mind that he would've shot her full of holes, fucked each one, then kept making more holes to fuck.

Hot.

_'I am having trouble distinguishing who's more fucked up here.'_

"You," HJ spits, murderous even when he's holding his arms up.

"Me," Nisha says.

He bristles, breathing through his nose, a bull. Probably going to march home, jerk off crying and send her some threatening messages via app. But he goes in, orders an IPA (the owner looks even more disgusted), and takes it to her table. Huh. Baby boy likes a challenge.

The owner walks over to the ancient juxebox, putting on some Patsy Cline. It's a trick, an easy way to calm a brawl, cuz it's hard to stay mad when Patsy plays. Nisha has firsthand experience.

She makes up her mind as he makes up his face: cool, calm, collected. Bullshit bullshit bullshit. She puts her gun on her lap and takes a good look at him. Yellow sweater, brown worn leather jacket, Levis, boots. Expensive watch. Cobber-colored rings. Nice hair. His body is okay, thin but muscled; small geeky bullied kid tries to grow big and strong, to cover his traumas with flesh and hide in his own body, maybe? These days everyone's got a sob story. Looks like his pics online except that when he sneers and grins (like now) it's like broken glass. Prettyboy got teeth.

"So. HJ."

"Name's Jack."

Nisha thinks of the cheap whiskey she drank too much of as a kid, waking the day after a birthday party and waking covered in her own piss and puke while her mom stood over her and laughed. "I'm gonna call you Jack _y_ then. That alright?" He snorts, drinks his fucking IPA. Name's probably an alibi.

"You wanted to discuss terms," he says, and then it's back, not the smile but the shyness... no, it's not shyness, it's quietness, as if there are no words for what he wants. They're both more talkative online because everyone's more talkative online. Despite the quiet his body moves for him, though, all nervous thrumming energy. So unlike pictures on a screen. Up close, she sees it, sees his jaw working,  grinding. Noise, too: tapping with his feet, mutters garbled into near incomprehensibility, a constant buzz that drills into Nisha's skull. Too much movement for one body.

// And I'm crazy for loving you//, Patsy sings.

"Yeah. Terms." She gives a tight little nod. Her stomach makes a hungry gurgling sound but she isn't embarrassed. "Food, first." It's almost normal. She orders a full cowboy breakfast; bacon, eggs, beans, sausage, tomato slice, white bread, orange juice (with _la specialite de greasy spoon_ ; a dash of liqor), shouting her order. Jack orders the same. It's the sort of food that'll leave the taste of lard burning in your mouth all day. She envisions he'll taste smoke and grease all day and think of her.

Jack mutters something about how he prefers Chinese food, and Nisha replies she's never had any good Chinese food. "What the fuck," Jack says, but she just shrugs.

"Split the bill, baby?"

"Yeah," he says, and cocks his head to the side like a bird that couldn't decide whether she were food or not. "Yeah, split the bill, kitten."

"So. The things you listed to me online, they true?"

"Yeah."

 

 

 

"You're clean?"

 

"Yeah," he says, and he isn't bothered. Good, not a newbie. "You?"

 

"Yeah. And you know all the rules?" He goes all silent. Shakes his head, similarly to the gas station girl at Christmas Eve, a peculiar hopelessness. Nisha isn't interested in being a mentor. "Are you unfamiliar with BDSM?"

"No," he says, looks up—and he isn't a liar. "Not new. It just hasn't been. Uh."

"Recently?"

"Safe," he correcta. "I like edgeplay, it's just that…" His voice goes very low. "It wasn't good. My recent relationships weren't good."

"Communication issues?"

"Yeah. And—" ohh boy, for a moment she thinks he's gonna unload on her, but he shuts his mouth fast. Expression, rotting. Guy's got mood swings: red flag. "They weren't healthy. My previous relationships, I mean. That's all there is to it. But I'm trying. Reading shit about Risk-Aware… Shit, I can't remember the whole name, but you get what I'm saying right? Eti—quett—e. I want something healthy. I wanna try to— ...Goddamn it," he bristles at the end, starts eating. He eats like a man who does so only to have something to do.

Nisha catches herself staring at him, then. Not just looking, really-really staring with her stomach surging with a feeling she hates, the feeling of her chest opening and her stomach and her mind opening in weakness, a familiar shout into an unfulfilling void, _hello are you like me._ And she clamps down on it, the feeling can _go fuck itself_ , she doesn't have it in herself for such, it's her mother's words but it's been proven time and time again, she barely has and emotional capacity for her friends, and she certainly doesn't have the slightest-in-hell capacity for what kindled in her chest.

She nods, solemn. "Healthy."

"What we did back then weren't."

Back then—in the pub and in the bathroom. She remembers it as clear as day, and for once, wishes she didn't try to have principles.

Breakfast is served and pause the exchange. Steaming fatty hangover food, except they're both damn-near sober, and this sure as hell isn't a brunch between friends.

"…It wasn't," she says. "But we can try." We. That's a word she doesn't use often. He sure as shit should appreciate it.

"Yeah. Yeah. Try," he agrees. He leans too far forward on the table and gets bean grease on his jacket, curses loudly. Nisha watches him impassively. He eats using a spoon(?!), speaking with his mouth full of eggs, bad posture, bad manners, "Having said that, I'm into all the nastiest things."

"All the nasties things?" Nisha repeats, amused. "Lay 'em out, cowboy."

His mouth full of grease, his eyes glint.

There is a surge—right in her solar plexus, centre of her chest—and she wonders if it's gonna end in pain. She hopes it's the good kind.

.

.

31th December

01 a.m.

New Year's Eve is more tolerable because of its focus on getting wasted with friends instead of fun time with the relatives whose blood you'd rather bathe in than call your own. Athena and Janey invited her to dinner, which she went to, until Athena's desire to "ring the new year in" (fuck to explosions) made the air too heavy and Nisha had to leave before "she did something they'd all regret". They are used to Nisha's lewd suggestions, and sent her packing with what's left of the Christmas cookies. After that, she had a beer with Wilhelm. As per usual he didn't say a whole lot, just talked about guns and combat techniques and she listened with her head in her hand, having had the same conversation with Athena. The sky ruptured but they did not go outside the bar to see. He gave her a hug that felt like a Heimlich manoeuvre and they agreed to meet again in two week's time.

And now Nisha is alone, unlocking her apartment's rusty old door. She takes a shower, and waits for her hair to dry naturally in a comfy sweatshirt while drinking a pineapple smoothie, sitting cross-legged in her bed. No makeup, lots of lotion. She made sure to be very sober. Letting herself into a different headspace, she calms her breathing, letting the surroundings shift along with her state of mind. The cowboy stuff she's thrown black blankets over; her Clint Eastwood and John Wayne collections, other spaghetti westerns. Windows are closed, blinders shut, curtains drawn. Carpet rolled-up and removed. Bed sheets changed, with a latex layer underneath for easy-clean-up. There is no room for personality, here, just persons.

And so her bedroom became the black room. She's lit it with dozens of candles, stretching and playing with shadows. Movement is expected. Required. The mirrors on the walls add to the illusion of endless space, made otherworldly by the dark and the candles. The mirrors are there so she can see herself. _"No one will ever see you,"_ rings in her head and Nisha replies, "Fuck off," and looks hard in the mirror, but no mother appears.

An hour pass. Nisha isn't lonely. You're not alone when you have plans.

Jack's at her door ten minutes too late, but she doesn't mind because it's a nice change from her militant friends, who are precise and surgical and unerotic. The inspection wields good results, apparel to liking, easily-removable clothing (white shirt, black Levis and socks with a dollar bill-pattern). In his hand, there are two white plastic bags. She shows him in and does not turn around to see if he's following. Always safest to meet at her place, the first time, even if he's queer and thus statistically less likely to murder her. There is a hall, and then there is her bedroom. Her black room.

Jack's got that quietness over him again, an animal waiting to pounce. Conversationally, he says, "We never did decide who was gonna sub and who was gonna dom." He leaves the two plastic bags along the wall, carefully avoiding the candles. Then he spots a chair and sinks down into it like a man who hasn't sat for a thousand years. But his shoulders are high and his eyes predatory. "Guess we gotta fight, huh," he continues.

She hums some nondescript reply, and begins undressing. Under her oversized sweatshirt: nothing except a minimalist, comfortable black leather harness. She keeps her boots on, well-worn but taken nicely care of, cowboy boots with the sharp little stars. No gloves because she hasn't felt him yet. She still looks like personified fetish. When he just sits there watching, she mocks, "Baby boy needs help taking his shirt off?"

"Baby boy is about to chew your tits off," comes the growl from the dark.

"Teething so soon?"

"C'mere and feel 'em, mama." His legs are crossed, one boot on and one above ground, still. So still. Why is he so still?

Nisha nears him, one step at a time, and lays both hands on his shoulders, squeezing. He trembles under her. He's never not moving. "Mama doesn't trust you not to bite, sweet boy. Dangerous boy."

Jack stands and his hands are around her throat in an instant, squeezing, but she sees him coming—she sees it in his eyes: the want to crush and tear and dominate—and socks him in the jaw. The shocked noise he makes justifies her bloody knuckles; she should've worn her gloves. Up again, on his knees, he lashes out to _punch_ the legs from under her, she sidesteps him and plants her boot-heel on his bicep, grinding down. Puncturing skin. Holes in him. There is a bleeding hole. Under her, he growls low in his throat. The look he gives her is so eloquent of disgust that she wants to kiss him, or maybe spit on him.

"Do I have to break you down?" she asks.

(In her head, his voice from their meeting: "I lose control, sometimes. I dare you to do something about it." A request he could not voice. Boy is a challenge. She's gonna fuck it out of him.)

He's slow about getting up, using her as support. He hides his face in her leg, nudges his nose against it almost cozily, childlike, until he inserts his teeth into the exposed flesh of her knee. A heartbeat before the pain sets in. He's locking his jaw, gnawing, head shaking like a rabid Rottweiler's. Nisha does not scream but she does fall. Once he's gotten her down to his level, he's on her.

In her mind, a line from some nature documentary: even in your house-carpets, insects try to eat each other.

His skittish attitude is so unlike a dom's. He's trying to get his hands around her neck again (mouth open, tongue dangling, nervous energy, dog boy) and in his eagerness he does not see her reaching for her whip, brown like the flooring and so hidden, until now. Her blood streams out of his mouth.

"Stealin' sugar like a kid," Nisha says. "Well, _here we_ whip kids to teach 'em better."

She slashes him across the chest. His knees hit the floor; down, _down_. The shirt's torn. Red dots the white. Nisha thinks of doves, which her mother once served for dinner after a nine-year-old Nisha had expressed she admired their beauty. The anger that follows the comparison of her mother breaks etiquette again (although his soundlessness is the exact opposite of her mother; the bitch would laugh and laugh and laugh) and she lashes out once more. He's halfway turned around,  and so the whip slashes a line on his back. And another. And another: this time on his ass. He's crawling. Wiggling. Instinctive; the animal magnetism of his behavior and sweat-slicked body has her asshole clenching. His voice starts as a rasp, then a rumble, he turns his head slowly, "That all you got, you stupid slag? Jesus took 31!"

He screams when she hits him in the face. The sound is legendary. "Not the face," he yells, falling to his back and shielding it. She frowns. The whip is leather and not a chain. Is he pussying out on her? He's hiding his face, peeking above his arm like a little kid, stance all but like that of a violent scared animal.

And then she's thinking that scared animals trample their children to death when stressed. If the metaphor fits her or him, she does not know.

God, she gotta remember the fuckin' etiquette.

"Safeword?" she asks.

The lights stretch and distort his features. He'd easily look like a monster, should she envision it. His dry lips, a thin line. _'If you came to be coddled, this is the wrong neighborhood, cowboy.'_ Bending the whip in her hand, Nisha takes a loud fast step forward.

Again, he bristles, and awkwardly claps twice, their signal rather than their word. It's okay for a first time. Subbing doesn't come easy for everybody.

Under all the petty fear, he's livid. Having momentarily paused the scene, he explains himself, showing teeth, "Don't do the face."

Scene etiquette says she shouldn't ask. Don't dig for water under the outhouse, as they say. "Why?"

"A lover cut it open with an electric cheese shredder."

When he spoke, his voice was overwhelmed by—not fear, not bitterness—madness. Pure undiluted crazy. Not anger, more like love. Like he'll use those pretty white teeth to tear this world apart. And at once, Nisha feels overpowered by the white-hot sun of evident: he's not right in the head. Nobody who goes through that comes out right. She should end it. Tell him that she doesn't do scenes with traumatized people. Jack, weird crazy Jack, waits.

She feels a fat drop run down her inner thigh, to her upper leg. It leaves a cold lick where it trails. She's lubricated. Huh.

"Alright," she says.

Eyes half-lidded, he claps thrice, signalizing that the scene begins anew. When she nears he seems to be back in the "lure state"; ready to pounce. Nisha won't have it. So instead she turns 180° degrees and marches over to an old, huge-ass closet, pulling out much-needed gear.

She hears him stand, run, leap. The floor does not creak under his weight. She waits until he's close before she turns around, "Don't turn your back on me, you b—"

In her hand, a butcher knife.

He's got fast reflexes and stops.

"Baby? Boo? Barbie? Plenty of pet names that start with a b, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt." Nisha advances, sees the sweat on his collarbone, sees him raise his arms and backpedal. "Relax, Jacky-boy. You said you liked edgeplay. So do I. And there's plenty of places I can cut outside of your face." Are you supposed to mention squicks and triggers during play? Nisha doesn't think so. But saying it makes this more real, somehow, puts 'em out of roleplay limits (which she's never been that fond of), and Jack's uncertainty is so worth some moral ambiguity. He knows nothing but extremes.

"Undress." She gestures with the knife," "Shirt first. C'mon. Haven't got all day."

He finally snaps out of it, and begins unbuttoning his shirt. At first he starts making a little show of it, but when he gets no response his cockiness falters and he grumbles and rips it off, letting it fall behind him in a crumpled heap.

Her eyes narrow. "Don't piss on the carpet. Again."

"…What?"

"Pick it up, put it on, and remove it without the hooky stripping, fold it nicely, lay it on the floor."

"I'm not a fucking sub."

"No, but I'm holding a knife. Do it."

The procedure is repeated with the preferred changes, then goes the pants. No underwear. Nisha offers no compliments. Just a nod. He glares at her, the whole time, even when he stands naked before her. Defiant asshole.

"Let me have a look at you," she says, and when a blood vessel shows in his forehead, she moves the knife into a stabbing postition to let light shine off it. Using expert maneuvering, she leads light from the candles into his eye. Is he heterochromic? Or is it the black room playing a trick on her? It must be the only hetero thing about him, because he's doushed; yes, she can smell it from here. He doesn't blink until the eye waters, finally casting both down.

"Go into position," she orders.

"What position?"

"You're a switch, aren't you? Choose."-

He takes a moment or two to think. Abruptly he spreads his legs and cuffs his hand behind his back and raises his chin where a sub would've lowered it. His back's military straight, but he fidgets, shifting his weight from leg to leg, fingers spasming as he fights to keep himself still. Does he have more of a military kink than she first expected?

Oh well. She can work with it. Subconsciously she straightens, as to mimic him. Two switches having a chat. Delicious change of routine, this.

He holds says, "I brought you a gift, you know."

"Hmm?"

"The plastic bag. The one with the red blanket inside."

She considers mocking his – blankie(?), doesn't. Her boots creak as she walks over the floor, to the two plastic bags. One with a red and one with a green blanket. It was all planned, so he could give a quick order. Half-expecting him to pounce, she's on edge, and doesn't notice what she's holding till she's turned around. "…Champagne?"

"Not just any champagne. Fancy shit, cost a fortune." _I can afford it_ hangs in the air like a subtitle. Maybe he ventured himself a sugar daddy.

Nisha deadpans, leans on the wall behind her. It's hard to remember there exists floors and walls when he consumes her attention so.  "Even if I did like champagne, it goes against the rules, remember?"

"What fucking rules?"

"The ones we agreed to follow in the bar, remember? Healthy? No mind-altering substances, for an example, like drugs and alcohol?"

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Still, she's a creative gal. Popping the cork, it foams over. Definitely sugar daddy territory. Smells nice though; sweet, sugary alcohol, wedding-like. She tips the bottle over her mouth first, letting it fall in just to spit, then lets it run over her tits, her stomach, her pussy, legs. Up and down, gauging his reaction. The whole of her shines. Champagne, heated by her skin. Golden (like her) and dripping-glittery (like her).

Jack makes a sound low in his throat. A tremor travels through him. An itch: she understands, then, for a moment.

"Wanna help me clean up?" she teases. He's fast. It's her turn to bristle and it stops him mid-movement. (That being said, nothing truly stops moving here, because of the candles. Everything trembles in their wake. So maybe he isn't really breathing hard. Maybe he isn't moving. Ha!) "Ah-ah." A long, gloved finger, tilted from side to side in front him. "Keep your hands on your back, like before. And ask."

 

"There are no questions, princess," Jack says, "there's just what I want." His one-liners are mostly a hit-or-miss, sometimes from porno, sometimes from film. She's neutral towards this last one.

"And I'm generous. Very much so. I'll let you have it, she gestures to like her lower region like it was the Holy Grail, "if you're good. Wanna be good?"

He drops to his knees in front of her,  cuffing his forearm behind his back like before, clearly amused. Nisha holds the bottle over him, waving it slightly. He remains amused, and when she pours it over him, he opens his mouth and drinks. Neck muscles strain, the Adam's Apple bob greedily. If his neck works like that when he eats her out… Wow, well, she wishes she had cameras lined up.

"You're supposed to spit," she says and takes another messy swig.

He says, "I'm not a spitter," and looks like he wants to high-five himself, only to have her pour some more over his head, making him gurgle, shaking his head like a wet dog. "What the—"

Nisha's kissing him, back arched, fingers on his chin. She did not swallow: she lets the heated champagne into his mouth, and her hand trails lower to his neck, feeling his fanatic pulse, the beat of his heart, and feeling him drink. Puppy-milk. His whole body stretches up to meet her. Their eyes are wide open and on each other. When they part a line of golden spit-champagne pops between them, and they're panting. Or is it the candles? She rises to her full height and wipes sticky hair from his forehead.

"There, there. I'll let you have it. I'll be generous," she says, spreading heaven / herself above him.

"Thanks," he mutters, but at the reveal of her, he's distracted again: the look of a man dying of thirst greeting the sight of an oasis in the desert. The crazy in him shines bright and curious. He descends on her with his shark-teeth closed in what could be a sneer or a grin, and she feels the two rows part along with his lips to start working her. Such pain, should they close again! The bite in her leg throbs as if called upon. Nose in the soft, downy hair of her mound, he inhales her, warm-cold of his breath has her shuddering. He mumbles, "Sweet." The scent of her is a potent aphrodisiac. His arms shake behind his back. He parts her vulva using his mouth. He's eaten pussy before, has the muscle memory in. Small teasing licks, ice-cream-cone style (couldn't have done her better hersel), he starts slow and lightly pets her slit with the tip of his tongue in a liquid rhythm. The muscles in her thighs flex. Soft and wet and a hardness there, there, too: her piercing, a ring through her cunt. She knows by experience that metal—piercings—taste like blood. A piece of dripped mercury between her legs.

"Kiss it."

He does, so careful, and shakily breathes, "Beautiful."

Nisha considers, despite it all, his unquestioning eagerness and doglike devotion. How he's like a kid, in some ways, needed to be kept occupied 24/7 as to not let his mind trail into madness. Both when trying to tongue-fuck and kill her, his eyes are on hers, ablaze. She'd like to see them close, once, and see him trust her. It isn't just the candles—feeling him against her she knows Jack shakes because of her, the underdog and under her. Her body start to flush red from cheeks to chest, a blush of arousal, visible even on her dark complexion. He's using more force, idly taking a lip between wet lips. "Annh," slips out of her.

"Mm-hmm," Jack rumbles in response, like a sound from the bottom of the drain, a deep drain.

And so he continues, pressing against her clit in the right moments, breathing in though his nose and making her shudder and come. The orgasm is like a water stream, cool and slow, mind blown out the window for long seconds. _La petite mort_ ; the French know their wording. No memories. No loneliness. No mother.

Blinking, she re-awakens from death. Jack watches her, waiting for her to fall off the throne, always. She never will. Mad with something, Nisha puts her boot on his shoulder and grabs him by his wine-sticky hair, shoving his head back into what he's supposed to—according to her id—be worshipping. "More," she demands hoarsely, standing on her toes on one foot and twisting her hips, face-fucking him. Jack is still for a couple of moments before he starts again, harder this time, 'cos suddenly it became a challenge. His tongue probes good against her oversensitive bundle of nerves. And she's a loud one. "That's it," he murmurs, and sneaks a hand in-between her legs and up, trails a thumb from clit to asshole and out, grabs a handful of ass hard enough to bruise, "Yeah, keep making those noises, princess."

If he's gonna call her anything, it's gonna be queen.

Annnd she has her boot on his neck. She has him on the floor so fast he gets whiplash, one eye looking one direction and the other eye another. Her glare tells him everything he needs to know. What he's done. Who's the boss. In his own way, he's a little bit more submissive, wrapping long slender hands around the foot on his neck, almost submissive and almost daring her to go harder. She presses down.  It's difficult for him to breathe, now, and his eyes nearly pop. This is bloody business.

"I told you to keep your hands on your back. D'you wanna die, Jacky?" she asks, blasé. And it's low, but she likes pushing him as far as she can, "Will no one miss you? I won't, with the way you're behaving. You always like this?"

Jack grins, but it falters. She applies more pressure, and he leans back. His hands are still on her leg. Nisha thinks that some people grin at the wrong moments. Finally broken down (again), he stretches his arms out above his head, like when she had a gun on him. He licks his lips like she doesn't. On his neck, a boot-shaped bruise will blossom, purple, blue, yellow and green maybe. Her sole print. Soul print? Ha, as if! _'He'll look in the mirror and know where I've been. Every movement of his face will mean memory.'_

"You enjoy it," he says, wiping the juice from his mouth with his arm and licking that off, too. It'll crust in his barely-there five o'clock shadow like glitter. "I see you, you know." He doesn't. It just bullshit psychological dicksucking.

Rolling her eyes, she offers him a hand. He takes it and she helps pull him up, he's a little wobbly for kneeling for so long. His dick is aggressively erect.

"Bed?" she asks.

"Mmmmm-hm," again, the drawn-out drain rumble,  ice cracking in the thaw. He backs away from her, falls backwards down on the bed. She follows. He crawls backwards, one knee up as to stop her from crawling over him, feral and unbroken. Sweat on his brow, on his chest, dick like a goddamn beacon. How he isn't beating himself off like a prehistoric caveman is beyond her.

_'I've mounted the saddle. Now I've gotta ride it.'_

Suddenly, he twists around, scanning the wall for something. He finds it: a nailed-in hook on the wall above the end of the bed, in-between the squared mirrors. When he turns around again, his mouth is open, then closed. Quietly he crosses his forearms in a request he cannot voice, emotion almost warming the room in their intensity.

Nodding, I get it, she gets two pairs of handcuffs out from under the bed. She holds them up, quietly says, holding them up at intervals, "These ones are the sort that you can get out of if you want to. These ones, not so much." The latter clink with heavy lock and key, 100% steel, not the safe plastic cheap shit like the former. Girl who sold the heavier ones to her online started their transaction with a disclaimer: you shouldn't use these on new partners. But she can't help it: control, control, control rings in her head like an alarm. "Understand?"

Jack immediately gestures to the bad pair of handcuffs. He likes dangerous things. She knows he does.

She thought about going in from the side but when he lowers his knee it says enough. Walking forth on her knees, she cuffs him to the hook, lock-in-key. The key, complete with a heavy red steel bar as to not get lost easily, she throws off the side of the bed. It lands with a clank. Beneath her, Jack shudders.

She grabs him, fondles his balls (it's more to feel them in her hands than to pleasure him, really) and strokes his cock into hardness again, which doesn't take a lot of effort. Pushing against the cuffs, he growls, rocking shamelessly into Nisha's hand, feeling every callous rough and perfect on his dick, a thumb pad sliding over the tip. She gets a condom from her harness-pocket (gotta love those) and slips it on him; he does not say anything. When she lets go of him completely he looks crestfallen for a split second, but when she's positioning herself above him he's interested again.

She holds his eyes.

She pushes down in the exact same second he pushes up to meet her, and the force of it has them both grunting in surprise. The tip opens her up like a wedge, burrowing in far before it finds resistance. Nisha's muscles clench again, involuntarily, the tension redirected up into her spine as she struggles to relax against the intrusion, against Jack filling her up and forcing her to let go of resistance / control, the warrior that is her body surrendering, retreating back under the cover of mental detachment.

"Good girl," he says, using any chance he gets to upset the power structure.

"Fuck you," Nisha says, and starts fucking in earnest. At first Jack gets whiplash (as per usual: for someone who craves constant change and movement he sure as hell look star-struck when he gets it), then he gets into it, expertly meeting her thrusts, and she realizes with happiness that he's been ridden before, oh fuck the hell yes.

She lets her head fall back for a second.

Wrong move.

Jack descends on her in an instant, chews on her nipples, tries to take her entire tit in his mouth and fails, in retaliation chews on the collarbones, the chest—and the neck he cannot strangle, no bra for her tomorrow / next year, hah! And in her head, cowboy novel proverb in monotone: anyone who fears the dog's mouth more than the horse's has never seen a horse. Human-like. Big teeth-ed. Like him. Nisha yell-laughs at the pain, the wretchedness of it, grabs his hair and steers him away and bites his neck in a way that is entirely primal, all while riding him. He replies with a laugh-scream of his own.

"Does baby boy like being told how bad he is? Bad boy, so bad," she mocks.

"Shut the f—fuuuuck up, _oh my god_." He's so cute she pinches his ass and almost forgives his harsh words. His body is betraying him. But words mean something and she isn't forgetting. He whines when the pinch turns into a harsh slap.

"What did you say to me?" she asks, adjusting her voice so it comes out flat, when in truth she's amused.

"Uh, I—"

She presses down, "Did you raise your voice against mama? Do I need to break you further?" 

"N—no, uh..."

To make her point, she stops moving. "It's almost as if you don't deserve this."

"Move," he says hotly, "god, move."

"Beg."

His face shatters so beautifully, parted lips, the white of his eyes, "Please, please, Nisha—!"

Been a long time since anyone said her name like that. She bounces down on his cock so fast a scream leaves his mouth, and she fucks him, he doesn't stand a chance of meeting her thrusts now, it's almost as if he presses his ass into the mattress to get away from her, but he can't because she's on him. Nowhere to hide. She's using her fingers to get herself off, oversensitive from her two orgasms, left near-breathless by a small third one that doesn't make her stop. Harsh breath and groans, which is which and who cares? The hook in the wall shakes, too, the lit candles, the body beneath her body, it's too much. He's too much. She lifts her gaze—now that he's so thoughtly wrecked that he won't bite—to the mirror behind the bed to admire their bodies, and is greeted with a horrifying sight. It is not their bodies that horrify her, no, those are beautiful and bruised and deliciously monstrous… It is her face, her own face, so warped in control it's like... Just like...

Her mother.

It feels as if someone just walked over her grave.

It crashes in, then: the obscene horror of resembling a hated relative. Every similarity becomes so clear: her eye color, her complexion, the way she wrinkles her nose… the way she moves, her walk, her mannerisms, her gesticulation… even her words and wants. All her work to distance herself from her mother: a fiasco. She's gotta stop getting so consumed by him. To her, this kind of shit the unhealthiest of all. To be like her dad, too, to be blinded, to love someone so much that the radiance of them outshines their glaring faults. Her mother craves control and seeks weak men to inflict herself upon.

Like Nisha inflicts herself upon Jack.

This is the second time she stops.

Jack's even more wrecked than the first time. "Wh–what? Why'd…?"

Goes off.

"God, no," he mumbles—is that actual tears on his face? No, no, it's sweat, thank god.

"Not a god," she comments wryly, then slides off, pretending her legs aren't wobbly.

"I was good," he reasons in a voice that's more like a whine than a growl, "I didn't—"

"One more wrong word and you're staying like that," she warns. She begins pacing, then stops, packs her discomfort under layers of steel. She goes to the chest and fumbles; finds a strap-on, mind cool and liquid. Jack, still handcuffed, watches her. The strap-on isn't scary, nor designed to hurt: the harness part is brown leather and its focus is quality rather than flair. It's double-ended and customizable; one dildo for you and one for your lover. She chooses her favorite—bumpy and hot pink—for herself and a steel one for Jacky-boy. Nothing too horrible. Walking to the front of the bed, she puts it on, her own easily slipping into her, filling her up. She looks very intimidating. She's looking for things to get angry for, and finds them.

His wildness.

His stupidly.

His wants—and his inability to voice them.

"Can't say anything, can you?" she mocks, and sees him shrink and sneer and say nothing. He turns away and she won't have it. She's on him, hands on his chin, strap-on digging into his stomach, "Tell me you want it, cowboy."

"…Why," he growls.

"Because of consent and all that jazz," she says.

(The memory of him in the greasy spoon, rusted tomato sauce at the corners of his mouth, his voice rough, "I like being – You know." Staring at his plate again. "If you're able to... Do it to me. It. The. Uh." What he had clumsily tried to say was that he liked taking it up the ass.)

"I want it."

"What do you want?" She unhooks the cuffs so they're on his stomach instead of above him. A look of discomfort crosses his face. She uses the distraction to flip his legs over her shoulders. To further signify what she'll do, she presses the strap-on against his ass. First then does his body react, curving like wire, thrumming low. So practical, she thinks and smirks. Her hand reaches out—and maybe he thinks she's going to caress his face or something equally disturbing—and past him, under the pillow, finding a little tube of lube. She lubes both him and her toy up. It's slim enough to slip inside without much prep. "C'mon. Say it." It truth she should've fucked him face-down to add to his anonymity. It'll be a one-time-thing and then he'll vanish out of her life forever. She's drifting over his ass, his thighs more prettier than her own. Jack groans low as the tip of the cock brushed against his balls in its caress, body brimming with desire.

The inhumanity of the emotion.

Monstrous.

"I want you to fuck me," he says, face turned into the pillow, "with that _thing_."

There it is. He won't go further.

Or?

"Keep the condom on," she orders in a voice that could've commanded a police force. A passing thought: she could've made a good sheriff in one of her movies, there wouldn't have been any corruption in her town unless she was at the head of that, too.

Is he still? No, never.

She's slow about pushing in. It's a mix between care and savoring it: the little twitches, the shaky inhale.

"Breathe."

She's barely moving her hips but he's wound tight like wire. Supporting herself on one arm, she leans over, using the other to stroke his cheek. A spasm travels through him. Watching his face intensely, she starts moving with little mean thrusts, not completely in yet. Again, the dildo she choose for him was not too big—he shouldn't have as much of a problem with it as he does.

Now for the final blow: she puts her hand around his neck, brand and collar all at once. Tighter and tighter. Every flex of her fingers have him shivering. Silence. The last tremors is wrecked out of him and he sucks in a breath like it's his last. He goes oddly slack against her, the sounds of pleasure replaced by silence, and she's realizes she's managed to break him down like he'd dared her to. The victory tastes sour. He's docile like this, head down, her imprints all over him, so compliant. But submission, she realizes, is not what she want. That's why all her subs have left her disappointed. Jack is not a sub. She was a fool to try force him into a category—and he was a fool to dare her to do so. They're close like this, his legs slung over her shoulders, her chest above his. He cannot hide his face from her anymore. Shut his eyes, yes, so tightly his face strains, eyelids flickering as if in REM sleep. There is boundless, black weakness in his face. For the first time, she sees him.

A moment, a glimpse, in which god becomes an atheist.

Jack, who is chaos personified, , forever fidgeting and muttering, who hides himself inside a body that betrays him. Beautiful Jack who finds enlightenment in his own disfiguration and does not want you to touch it. He is everything she is but unhinged with a crazy that'll set them on fire, Icarus and dripping wax-wings, shining golden in his quest to better the gods, a brief moment of freedom, falling scream-laughing, watching himself burn from the centre of the flames. Their connection that she pretends isn't there, until now.

"Jack," and her back aching over him, her lips closer, "Jack, see me."

The trembling, _god_ , the trembling, begins anew. First half-lidded and gaze strangely off, she can see the whites and the tiny pupils, she kisses his eyelids. He opens them just in time for her to start, focusing, making sure his eyes are on hers. Finesse seems to help when she presses on the swell of a vertebrae in the lower beginning of his (exposed) spine in a way that she herself likes, holding him up to better fuck him. He's more relaxed now, and the monster in him re-awakens. A phoenix from the flame! She kisses him chaste and curious and he _bites_ , bloodying her lip and she laughs in joy against him. With renewed energy, he's pressing back and she feels the dildo inside herself twitch, she clenches down and pushes back. They're awfully close it's almost as if they're not moving. Almost. Their faces are so close she stares right into his maw his teeth his eyes—his goddamn eyes—and when she kisses him his tongue. He tastes the same as when she swallowed his spit in the heated backyard where they first fucked: blood (hers) and sweetness like hot candy (another taste of her). Her careful fucking pays off: it helps her pistol his prostate straight-on and his throaty scream makes the fight worth it 10x.

Jack's breathing open-mouthed against her, mumbling and the grunting. She sees his great joy in being able to state loudly and proudly his feeling of existing in this world without understanding anything. Beautiful crazy Jack. His hands are still cuffed on his stomach, close to his aching dick, and Nisha says, "Yes, _you may_ ," in a drawl. Boom and he's wrapping his cuffed hands around himself, masturbating as ferouslhly as the metal _clink_ s and _clank_ s. Os that a smirk? Nisha slams against his prostate a second time just to watch him go insane again.

And then, in the midst of gibberish, he screams a name when he comes.

It takes a moment for Nisha to understand its her own, so lost in his face: the expression of a man that's been stripped of everything and found his freedom. She realizes his face is full of scars. In its stretch of emotion, it truly looks disfigured: operation-scars, lines in his skin that's not supposed to be there. In plastic surgery the face they create is not always meant to move as like his do. The pictures, photo-shopped, she knows now. Regardless she does not curse social media. It's always been like this, to pretend your face is something it isn't. To first let the mask fall behind closed doors. Never with others. But... _'I wanna see your face.' ('And in turn maybe I'll see my own. Hello are you like me?')_ She loves his face, his true face. The condom fills. It makes sure it's easy-clean-up, thought, she wouldn't have needed the plastic sheet under: but she gets an idea, tucks it away, pulls out.

An eye pops open. Blue one.

"D'you need..."

A third time? He's too ambitious. Unfastening her strap on and letting it fall to the floor, she smirks, says, "Another time," and his eyes _flash_. That could mean a lot of things. "But..." The idea manifests itself more clearly. She gets the key from the floor (thank god for the steel bar attached to it), releases him, but before he can throw away the condom (it's the sort of hting he would do), she takes it from his hand, "Uh-nuh, cowboy. "Eat it."

"What?" he asks, still orgasm-high, pupils blown and sweaty hair clinging to his forehead. He looks so raw like this, smelling like semen: animal cleanliness, "You want me to—?"

"Eat your cum, yeah."

He makes a face, but it's more like a twitch, he's exhausted, it's cute. She dangles the cum-filled condom in front of him like a dog treat, and he grabs it, grip white as to not spill anything.

"Eat," she repeats.

He grabs the condom end with his teeth, balancing it with the flat of his hand. If he thinks it's gross he ain't showing it. Guy doesn't back down from a challenge. With a pop he parts his lips, uses his teeth , and starts tilting the condom up, as its meager contents run into his mouth. His cheeks hollow. Brows, drawn together in concentration. He slurps the remains, semen on each side of his mouth, and keeps his half-lidded eyes on her the entire time.

It's absolutely disgusting.

And adorable. And hot.

He's on her afterwards, suddenly on his knees so that he can kiss her. Dis—gus—ting. She kisses back with more force than strictly necessary, and in return he tries to eat her. Again. Blood smears and she thinks he'd look good with makeup: white powder, black kohl, obscene red lipstick. Maybe another time. She doesn't hope, never.

(Oh but she does.)

"Go get the second plastic bag for me," he rumbles against her, rising a hand up to pinch her cheek, "will you?"

"Mm," she answers, pulling away from him so suddenly he almost falls off the bed.

In her way to the bag, she thinks she sees the sun outside. Turns out to be a care, and the sudden light has their shadows change shape again. Some of the candles are burnt out, so when the car light vanishes, she notices how dark it is. She thinks about transformation into new year new resolutions new me, bullshit all of course except some of it, a resolution maybe: to let go. A little bit. Mind silent, she opens the plastic bag, removes the green blanket.

Pauses.

"...Chinese food?"

The smell spreads out into the air. Fried race, vegetables, sauce. Smells delicious.

"Uh-huh," comes from the bed, and when she turns he's sprawled nude in a draw-me-like-one-of-your-French-girls position, dick limp between his legs, wearing a shit-eating grin.

The snigger that escapes her is entirely unconscious and welcome.

She grabs the bottle of Champagne on her way over to him, putting the bag down. He eagerly opens it. They spend half an hour like that, telling each other dirty jokes, eating Chinese food and passing the bottle of champagne.

"I'm tired," she tells him. "Are you gonna go home?"

"No," he says, equally flat.

"You can sleep here."

"Alright," he says in the same tone, mood shattered. Jack is not very trusting. They both slip under the covers (the plastic whining, but it's done that the entire night so who the fuck cares). Nisha blows out the candles and takes off her harness before returning to bed, and when she does, she finds him staring at her.

Like a general in a war too damaging for both sides, she must do a gesture of peace. She closes her eyes, for a moment, then opens them: to see his having gone wide, startled, uncertain. "See?" she asks, and chuckles at the private joke. When he doesn't seem to get it, she grabs his hand—so practical, she thinks, fondly this time—puts it around her own throat, curling her fingers, repeating her first gesture. When she opens her eyes again, he makes the low rumbling sound he does when pleasured. Cockier, she lets her own hand finger-walk up his (shaved: ouch) chest, then to wrap around his throat, to mimic his gesture. The message conveyed: I speak your language. His Adam's apple bobs a great many times, then he settles, too, and allows vulnerability / exhaustion to creep back into his features. He squeezes a little, almost lovingly, then lets go off her throat. He lets out a little sigh. Then a yawn.

He settles, unbroken but happy, satisfied, tired, drags the covers around him. She lets go off his throat then, and he grins his broken-glass grin. He doozes off, well-aware she's watching her. It fills her with something.

Maybe—?

She closes her eyes, and too, settles.

Yes. Maybe.

Finally letting go, she sees his eyes move beneath his lids in deep sleep. Wondering what he dreams about, she soon lets sleep claim her. Morning and a new year dawns, light coming in through cracks in the blind and curtains, reflected in the mirrors, painting the empty champagne bottle and leftover Chinese food, the handcuffs and the sex toys, the sleeping bodies, all of it, in shades of gold.


End file.
